Earlier in the week I posted on Facebook about a dinner exceeding my expectations. This is that dinner. When I read the list of ingredients, poblano peppers, tomatillo, avocado, cilantro… OF COURSE I knew I would like the sauce. What’s not to love about all of those things? What I didn’t expect was standing over my food processor bowl with a spoon hoping that I could manage to leave enough sauce in it to actually serve for dinner. That’s how much I liked loved this stuff. (Notice in the photo I put sauce under AND over the chicken).

What makes this sauce even better is its versatility. I used it as a semi pasta sauce and served it with grilled chicken and a black bean and corn salad. Of course it could easily go over rice or just plain right on top of chicken. I also have plans in the near future to serve it over top of fish. I’m guessing it would also go perfectly grilled shrimp. The possibilities are endless. And I’m all about versatility in the kitchen.

*I only used 1 jalapeno and Jesse and I both agreed that we could have handled one more

Directions

Preheat your oven on the broiler setting. Place the onion, jalapeno, poblano pepper, tomatillos, and garlic on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with canola oil. Place the baking sheet under the broiler, until the peppers start to char and the vegetables are softened. Remove from oven and allow to cool. Once cool, place the vegetables in the bowl of a food processor along with the avocado, cilantro and lime juice. Process until it is almost smooth* then, with the processor still running, stream in 1/4 cup of the half and half. If you would like the sauce a little thinner, add a little more half and half.

Serve with grilled chicken, fish or shrimp over penne pasta or rice. Also goes great with a simple black bean and corn salad.

*I processed mine for a little longer than I needed too, as a result I lost some of the beautiful flecks of dark green cilantro. But it still tasted great!

As I recently mentioned, I’m a sucker for sauces. I don’t think I could ever chose just one favorite, but I think honey mustard is towards the top of the list. Honey mustard seems to go especially well with chicken and pretzels, so pretzel crusted chicken and honey mustard dipping sauce seemed like a match made in heaven. And it was!

My friend Nikki recently shared the recipe she uses for honey mustard, so I used that as a jumping off point. Side note, I said “recently” then when I went to copy the URL I realized the post was from January. Wow. Time flies!! I wanted a stronger mustard taste so I cut the mayonnaise in half and added a little dijon mustard. The result was a dipping sauce that I easily could have eaten with a spoon.

For the chicken, I used a classic breading method. We loved how crunchy the crust was, and it really seemed to hold in the moisture of the chicken. It was really the perfect vehicle for the honey mustard dipping sauce.

Directions
Preheat oven to 375 degrees, line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Place pretzels in the bowl of food processor and pulse in 5-10 second increments until the pretzels are crushed, but not so long that they turn to powder. Alternatively, place pretzels in a Ziploc bag and beat with a rolling pin until crushed.

Place whole wheat flour and eggs separate bowls. In a third bowl, stir together the crushed pretzels, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, and cayenne pepper.

Lightly coat the chicken strips with whole wheat flour, then dip in the egg, then in the pretzel mixture. Place on the prepared baking sheet and repeat with remaining chicken.

Bake for 6-7 minutes then carefully turn over with cooking tongs and bake for another 6-7 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through.

I know I just posted a recipe for Dulce de Leche but can you really have too many different kinds of caramel? The answer is no. You can’t ever have too many kinds of caramel.

Salted Caramel is pretty popular right now and for good reason. If you’re new to the salted craze you may think it’s a strange addition. But don’t be scared. The salt really takes the caramel, and anything it touches, to a whole new level. This sauce is amazing on apple slices, ice cream, pies, or straight up on a spoon. It’s also the perfect ingredient to take a special dessert to the next level (spoiler alert for tomorrows post!).

You might think caramel is hard to make, and if your making candy it’s can be a bit more challenging, but for this sauce it’s really not hard at all. You won’t believe how quickly it all comes together. And I’m including a boat load of pictures to help you along the way.

Directions
Spread the sugar in a thin layer in a thick bottomed pan over medium heat. Leave undisturbed until the sugar around the edges starts to melt. Give the pan a swirl to redistribute the sugar. Repeat a few times. When most of the sugar has melted, you can give it a stir with a wooden spoon. When all of the sugar has melted and it is a dark golden amber color, remove from the heat.

When the melted sugar is off the heat, add the butter and stir. It will foam up. Stir until melted. Once the butter has melted entirely, pour in the cream and whisk/stir until you have a smooth sauce. Stir in half the salt then allow to cool completely. Once cool, stir in the other half of the salt.

Can be store in a covered container in the fridge for about 2 weeks.

Sugar in a thin layer in pan

Sugar starting to melt

Giving the pan a swirl, sugar continuing to melt
Sugar is a dark golden brown/amber color so I removed it from the heat
Adding the butter
Stirring the butter until it melts, see how it’s foaming up?
Adding the cream
Adding the salt
The whisk that I should have been using to stir the entire time

Later this week I’m going to share an ah-maz-ing cookie recipe that taste like a Twix bar! In order to pull it all together you’re going to need some dulce de leche, which is basically a fancy name for the best caramel sauce ever.

Like a lot of things in life, there is more than one way to make dulce de leche. Many methods use just a can of sweetened condensed milk, like this and this. Both of those recipes seem really easy and I’m sure yield excellent results. But, it’s just not that easy to find cans of sweetened condensed milk in Suzhou. Plus, I really loved the idea of using vanilla bean. Decadent dulce de leche with flecks of vanilla bean? Yes, please!

The good news is, even though there are just a few more ingredients to this, it’s still an easy recipe. The hardest part is being patient and waiting for it to turn that trademark deep, dark, golden brown.

Directions
In a 4-quart sauce pan, over medium heat, combine the milk, sugar, and vanilla bean (including seeds and the bean). Bring to a simmer and cook until sugar as dissolved, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle with baking soda and stir to combine. Reduce the heat to low and continue to cook, uncovered, at a very low simmer for 1 hour. After 1 hour, remove the vanilla bean and stir, but do not reincorporate any foam that forms. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally until deep golden brown. About 1 1/2-2 hours. Strain through a mesh strainer. Refrigerate in a sealed container for up to a month.

Hi! I’m Jessica. I love cooking, baking, eating, and talking about food. My goal is to make cooking and baking, even from scratch, seem approachable. If I can give just one person the boost they need to try something new in the kitchen, I’ll be happy.